I have more pictures of just him than I do of the two of us, just b/c I never stopped being smitten and in love with this beautiful man with the beautiful smile, who I didn’t really talk about too much on here. I was always taking pictures. His olderman self pursued me hardcore all fall/winter long, even took me to Europe to go in for the kill. And it worked. He stole my heart and lovingly stole me away on more getaways and adventures than I ever took time to mention on this blog. So so many amazing, special days and nights that string together in my mind and move my heart to tears when I think about them. This has been a year of excitement and joy and happiness for me because of him in my life. It all stays fresh inside me, the images and the feelings and the chuckles I’d hear whenever he was hugging me. And I will not ever let them go.

I sound pretty accepting of it being over, don’t I? It’s a fleeting moment of peace, comes and goes. Breaking up is not what I wanted, but it had to happen. I don’t want to talk about it either, which is why the comments are closed. It can’t be about what anybody out there has to offer or share, I’ve gotta deal with this quietly. And I’m honestly trying not to be too poetic about it, b/c it’s actually quite messy and sad. I still want him. I wish I could turn it around.

But it’s not like before. I’m not like I was before. The last time, the devestation of losing the love I had nearly crushed me and I forgot who I was for awhile. It stings and aches and you feel like you can’t breathe. All this time of somebody cherishing and appreciating and adoring you and wanting to show you off to the world — then it’s gone and you’re just left with memories and these botches ideas of what you still wanted to have. I keep thinking about silly things like the shirt I bought the other day that he hasn’t seen me in yet, or the song I was gonna tell him about, the friends of mine who still hadn’t met him but knew all about him, the trip we were going to take next week, the pictures I have uploaded into my computer that I was about to email to him, the restaurants we were excited to try, the shows we still wanted to see together. Ugh, this hurts. Who the hell writes about this personal stuff on a blog? Someone who wants to remember.

This is going to kill us for a good while. That’s ok. It’ll get better and I’ll be steadier, then suddenly relapse into missing him… and that’s ok, too. Shit dudes, I’m sure I’ll be all over the emotional map as the weeks and months hit. What’s important, I guess, and what I need to try reminding myself of, is that I am lucky. I am so so very lucky to have loved this way, and to have been loved and wanted and needed. And I can feel this love thing fully, and have this, and be enveloped and lost in this, and at some point I can be happy even with it not in my grasp anymore, b/c I have it all inside me. He saw it. I see it too.

I love you, Jeff. You dork. My hot stuff.

I got up extra early this morning and burned the CD, knowing the perfect song to end the mix. Attached the card I wrote last night. Took the long way to work, totally out of my way actually, but I wanted to do this.stopped off @ the florist across the street from his place. Sunflowers, the big kind — not his favorite but I know they’ll make him think about me. Rode the elevator up quietly, left the big yellows against his door with the card and CD slid into the stems, nodded to the doorman on my way out, and walked to work hoping he’d find them soon, cuz I wasn’t gonna call and tell him. I walked across 14th Street and I cried about how confusing this whole weird weekend has been for us. I just want for everything to be better and uncomplicated, and I wanna do what I can to see it through. To show him that I’m no prince, no saint, nobody’s wildest dream. But I can stand behind and be someone to fall back on.

Cryptic much, stranger friends? Well, that’s most everything I’m gonna say (and yes, I totally stole that “stranger friends” from Rosie). A lot of stuff has been going on in my world, mostly stuff of the good. It’s not all as tragic as it was this morning on the way to work. Parties and people, kisses, birthdays and good hair days, a lot of laughing. I want to keep all these good and beautiful things in my life as close as possible. I don’t wanna go without any of it, especially what I’ve found with him.

My beautiful pal Mishy is visiting on break from school in Switzlerland and crashing @ mi casa this week, so I spent the morning cleaning out the fridge and hall closets, mopping and sweeping, basically trying to remove all signs that a puppy lives here. My place actually looks pretty good when I have it organized and clean. Soon as she got in from JFK we were off to a mixer @ the gorgeous Terrace in the Sky, this very beautiful and very hidden french cafe atop one of the Columbia University buildings. I’d never been there before, the main dining room was gorgeous but it was the view from the outdoor terrace that really blew me away — straightup panorama of Morningside Heights, my favorite Upper West Side location. It was about 7:00pm so the sun that burnt orange color and there was a steady breeze. We rode a double decker bus down Broadway from 119th to Times Sq, it was amazing to look down on the streets from up there and see everything from a different view.

We got to 47th Street and unloaded to catch the 8pm show of Suzanne Somers’ one woman show The Blonde in the Thunderbird. I wish I could make funny jokes about how dissappointing it was, but that would imply that I went in with expectations. The show was fucking pointless. She’s damn near 60yrs old and she looks amazing (”Hormone injections,” she says), she glows and has gorgeous hair — but fuck all else if she ain’t the most boring person to watch onstage for 2hrs. The only thing remotely interesting was how she got cast by Geoge Lucas as “the blonde in the thunderbird” in American Graffiti and her tiny 3 second scene made her famous overnight… but she hardly talked about it. Instead, she took 2hrs of my time and just emoted her whole broken home childhood story, sang songs that had nothing to do with anything but were probably put in the show b/c she thinks she sounds really good doing them (”If I Only Had a Brain”), projected family portraits and film clips on the stage wall, reacted to pre-recorded offstage voices and sound effects which kept pulling me out of the “story”, and at the end of the show pulled out — I kid you not — a kiosk onto the stage and started advertising her entire QVC product line. I just started to feel embarassed for her. It seemed like a therapeutic lounge act she was performing in her basement for dinner guests, and somebody just gave her a Broadway theater to do it on instead.

After dinner we went to 44 & 1/2 and metup there with Kai, who was looking even hotter and buffer than usual. 44 & 1/2 was really cute, all the waitstaff wear pink shirts that say flirty things on the fronts and back. They sat us in the Bamboo Garden out back and I just had a nice time with my friends. It was great to spend time with the two of them, I mean, we’d all spent Chrismas ‘03 and New Years ‘04 together, and with Mishy studying on the other side of the world and Kai blissfully lost in his new relationship and his big plans to move to L.A. this fall, it was cool to know we could still get together at a moments notice and just hang.

I normally hate blog entries like this one. Entries that solely recap boring events of the day, like an itinerary filled with mentions of people, places, and things that I have no real awareness of. I find posts like this to be easy, unthoughtful, and not that interesting to read. Sorry to drop this mindless entry on all of you out there, my life sometimes just ain’t that layered.

It was a nice, simple day and I feel like remembering it.

As proud and defiant as I am in my Manhattan Till Death stance, I readily admit to being in love with the Brooklyn-based band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. In addition to having the coolest band name, they’re also totally unsigned (I know, I know, the “indie” thing makes me want to vomit too, but I’m giving them a fair shot) and they’ve gained uberattention solely from their local shows and internet word of mouth — I first heard about them on Gothamist. You can go to their website and download a few singles off their self-titled/self-released CD, “In This Home On Ice” is my favorite track. Not sure what the hell he’s singing but it’s upbeat and makes me wanna rollerblade across a bridge or something.

The city has been raining and thunderstorming lately. It’s all soupy, wet and windy in the late evenings. I love it.

So, UK Matt (remember him?) dropped in for a visit last month. He actually popped in as a surprise guest at my birthday party in May, I turned around and there he was looking sullen, jetlagged, and very proud of himself for pulling one over on me. I had no idea he was coming! He ended up staying with me (i.e. enduring my mood swings and cleaning up after my dog) for about a month and it was really wonderful to see him. Between my unmployment crisis and then my frantic jobhunt, I wasn’t much of a host but he was still a gracious houseguest, played a lot with my friends, and I have it on pretty good authority that he had a very good time.

No, the green sweater never comes off. Neither does the scowl.

I love Matt, my friendship with him is one of the coolest things this lame website has brought me. We got to spend some time together when I was in London earlier this year, he took me clubbing and taught me how to not get hit my cars driving on the wrong side of the street. I’ll evenutally post those pics too.

Well, they switched me to mornings and I work my first real shift alone this weekend, really excited and a little nervous. Everyone is so on point here. The other day this guy came up to the desk kinda upset, LGA cancelled his flight to Toronto due to weather and he wanted us to find another way to get him there that same night. See, this is the kind of thing @ Hudson I would have totally been able to disregard, say “You need to speak with your travel agent, sir”, and then go about the rest of my day. Not here — I watched, amazed, as my coworker assured the guest he could help, made a few calls, got some qoutes, and came up with THREE different travel options for this guy within 20 minutes. This is the standard of service I must deliver, and it’s intimidating. They setup my email and access codes, and my uniform finally came in and it’s nice. Black tee, charcoal pinstripe pants and matching jacket. Kenneth Cole. No tacky nametag (thank god), just a silver W pin on my collar. I look sort of handsome. Once my business cards come in I’ll feel more official. Right now I still feel like a guest in somebody else’s house.

I’ve been following Scott over @ Wicked Man for awhile now, stumbled onto his blog one night about a month ago. Having grown tired of my own drama, I spent 2 hours pouring through his. Very few ppl have the courage or sense to write the way he does, they (we) usually end up getting lost in trying to be sensational, whimsical, and witty — his very personal entries about his complicated life, psychotic exwife, and rowdy sexlife are simple and touching, sexy and interesting. Plus he’s damn hot. Check him out.

I hear they’re locking up Lil Kim for perjury! The judge actually sentanced her to serve “one year and a day”. There’s a lesson somewhere in that for her ass. I like Lil Kim enough, “How Many Licks…” was a damn anthem, but I can’t help but admire the poetry of it all. All that boasting and bragging about her thug life roots and shit, now she’s gonna have to go into the Big House and uphold her rep, poor thing. I’m not so sure she’s gonna do too well in prison, ya’ll. She talks a big game but if there’s not an entourage of publicists and bodygaurds around her I’m worried she might get stuffed into a big butch woman’s back pocket. Mary J. Blige, tho? would totally be fine. Mary would fuck you up. I wish Kim the best of luck, I hope she emerges from imprisonment next year smarter and more solid, with a new religion and album and reality tv series deal on the make. In the meantime, I’m going to send her a nail file and a wig, bake them in a cake or someshit, b/c beauty is important no matter where you are. I’m sure Lil Kim would agree with me. I’d remind her that telling the truth is a little more important, though.

Owning up to my own truth, I switched my gym membership to the downtown location closer to work but I’ll probably never go, and if I do? probably just to use the bathroom or get a smoothie at the juice bar. Also, the RENT trailer turns me into a teary eyed nerd everytime I see it.

UPDATE: There were a series of terrorist-related underground explosions in London Wednesday morning, July 7th. UK Matt is safe and sound, and so is his green sweater.

I get to see lots of theater through work, it’s one of the perks of being a Concierge/Slave to Eurotrash Tourists. The other night, I finally went to see Wicked, which I’d been invited to see back when it opened and I totally scoffed the tickets away, convinced the hype was bullshit — dammit. It’s probably one of the best Broadway shows I’ve ever seen.

For those a little late to the game (don’t feel bad, I always am too), it’s a musical based on a book about the life of Elphaba, the green girl who became the Wicked Witch of the West. The story follows her friendship with Glenda, who became the Good Witch of the North, and you get to see how the two witches met in college, what the Witch of the East had been like, why the ruby slippers were so important, why the monkeys fly, and everything that happened before Dorothy landed in Oz. Fans of the book are mixed on the musical, I’m actually reading the book now to see how the two measure up. An amazing show and the music is just incredible. When Elphaba came out and went into her first song “The Wizard & I“, my eyes just welled up with tears of excitment, and when she wails the shit out of her big “Defying Gravity” number at the end of Act 1? I was enthralled, clapping and co-signing, screaming “Fly, bitch! Flyyyyy!”

Rue McClanahan was in the show too, so was Ben Vereen (who I will always think of as the uncle from Webster) and they were really just… well, not that good, kinda OLD and struggling to hit those notes. You know you’re a showbiz legend when they cast you as a principal character in a Broadway musical and let you just speak the lyrics instead of singing them. That’s power, man. I don’t care how bad ticket sales are, when you resort to stunt casting like that? it’s just unwise. It’s just like when they started putting forgotten pop burnouts in RENT. Anyway, I’d never heard of either of the girls who played the lead roles, but I wish to God I could’ve seen the original cast, especially when Eden Espinosa took over the role of Elphaba when Idina Menzel left. I saw Eden perform in BKLYN: The Musical three times and she’s fucking incredible, that voice could tear the roof of the mother.

This fruity theater talk of Broadway legends and musical numbers isn’t my Gayness kicking in, by the way, it’s my Conciergeness. I get paid to know this stuff. My Gayness is a much more extreme display, usually obvious when I’m kissing a guy on the mouth. Just so we’re all clear.

Took me long enough to load and post these pics from my birthday parties In May, huh? And yes, that’s parties as in plural, cuz my popstar wannabe ass needed 2 of them this year. Obnoxious as shit, but people still came though. See for yourself.

May 15 & May 22, 2005

These are only a handful of the shots from those nights, but they’re some of my favorites… and also some of the few where I’m not making out with random ppl or looking redfaced and sweaty. See that bigass grin plastered across my face? It’s no joke. I smiled and laughed and danced so much, it was just a really wonderful time. I have some pretty amazing, BEAUTIFUL people in my life (a special one in particular) and they made my 26th birthday a special one I’ll always cherish.